Taiwan investigators study a transgenic watermelon

Productivity in watermelon cultivation dropped significantly due to several viruses. To avoid such losses, the team from the National Chung Hsing University, led by the researcher Ching-Yi Lin, have developed a watermelon genetically modified to resist certain types of virus.

They place a single gene fragment into the plants, that comes from the silver spot virus, mosaic virus from cucumber, green spot virus from cucumber and mosaic virus from watermelon. The gene is introduced to the watermelons via the soil bacteria Agrobacterium tumefaciens.

The genetic modification was confirmed by lab analyzes and the plant varieties exposed to the diseases caused by the virus showed some promising resistance results.